Power to the Tank Sentry system

[jelmore]

Paul Horner, Harry Hoppe, perhaps you would know since our coaches are cousins or sisters. I have a power outage to my Headhunter Tanks Sentry system. My wiring charts says that system is on 12v circuit 43A which is on fuse 43 (doorbell). Well, fuse 43 is good and there is no wire labeled 43A connected to that fuse or anywhere else. I checked all the 12v fuses and everything is good. The red and black 12v wires that are connected to the forward overhead cabinet fresh water Tank Sentry have no power. Troy at Liberty wasn't much help. I think this must be an obscure power connection, like my salon and bedroom electric shades.

Any ideas before I start taking everything apart? Help would be greatly appreciated.

[phorner]

Jim,

I don't know off hand but I'll poke around mine and see if I can figure anything out.

If the fuse is good, which it looks like you haven't actually found yet, maybe there is a ground problem?

I'll let you know if I find anything....

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Does the door bell work?

JIM

[jelmore]

Does the door bell work?

JIM

Yep, Jim, the doorbell works, so that's the odd. Shows how "custom" these coaches are. Doesn't quite match the manual.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

While wiring diagrams and wire number lists are helpful, I have found if something is not functioning in the coach I access the power in. Those wires are likely to have the circuit number on them. First you can check power at those wires. If there is none then you can assume on your coach that those wires are "home runs" and that between the device and the distribution block in the electric compartment that there are no splices or connections.

Find the number that corresponds and check for power.

If that fails then Bill or Troy are your only sources for trouble shooting advice.

[jelmore]

While wiring diagrams and wire number lists are helpful, I have found if something is not functioning in the coach I access the power in. Those wires are likely to have the circuit number on them. First you can check power at those wires. If there is none then you can assume on your coach that those wires are "home runs" and that between the device and the distribution block in the electric compartment that there are no splices or connections.

Find the number that corresponds and check for power.

If that fails then Bill or Troy are your only sources for trouble shooting advice.

Thanks Jon. The power wires at the front Tank Sentry do not have a circuit number on them (nor power). The Liberty book says they are circuit 43A. There is no 43A or unidentified wire in the 12V electrical cabinet. All fuses (unless I missed one, I'll check again) are good. I talked to Troy and his only comment when I told him there was no 43A was that I must have knocked something loose.

Isn't tinkering with stuff fun!

Headhunter's advice in diagnosing the cause is to disconnect the 12v power wires and connect a different 12v source to see if there is a failure someplace in the sentry system. I suppose I should use a fused source of power to test individual units.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

No sense checking the Headhunter if you don't have power going into it. It sounds like your problem is there is an open circuit somewhere.

I wish I could help but I have a 24 volt system and I am not sure our wiring numbers are the same.

[Alek&Lucia]

Jim,

Look in your bay where the SYM sensors are. All wires will be connected not far from them,

Alek

[jelmore]

Alex, on mine, all the Tank Sentry wires and the SYM wires go into a multi-cable harness that must connect to the front overhead cabinet. No power source from the coach in that area.

[jelmore]

Very pleased to make this report...

All is well, and my owner's manual has the correction noted.

Circuit 43A ("water panel") was wired to circuit 40A. Liberty will sometimes gang two or three low power circuits on one fuse, thus the labeling 40, 40A, 40B, etc.

40 is designated "burglar alarm (optional)" and 40A is "forward over cabinet lights (optional)", of which I have neither. The person that wired this must have seen the empty circuit 40 and put the Tank Sentry system there.

Thanks for the help.

[Kenneth Brewer]

But was the fuse blown, or something else, please? Thanks.

[jelmore]

Sorry, yes the fuse was blown. Minor deal. The first time through, I thought I had checked all the fuses. Apparently not. This one is at the top of the stack and I just missed it.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Good deal, glad it was that easy. We all learn the most from our mistakes and experience is the best teacher, both at play here.

A couple of ways to check a fuse is to replace it with a known good one, or with a volt meter at the power out side.

JIM

[phorner]

Jim,

I have been looking at my system and was about to post about a similar wiring situation when I read of your good news.

Glad that you now have everything under control.

[jelmore]

If they built hundreds or thousands of these things each year, they'd all be the mostly the same. Paul, what similar wiring situation were you looking at?

[phorner]

On the passenger side, near the water bay, there is a switched light just above the docking light that was out on our bus. A check of the bulb indicated that the lamp was not getting 12v power.

So, I needed to figure out why. I checked the similar light on the driver side and, no light there either, so I figured a fuse.

I don't have the wiring guide for our bus, but I do have a copy of one for a similar, 12 volt Liberty (#463) which I used as a basic guide. They referred to this as "Shore power Lt (Port) and Shore power Lt (STBD) and both were tied to the same fuse but labeled 50 and 50A, which I first thought would be 2 different fuses.

The root problem for me was that the wires had pulled off the light fixture on the passenger side, resulting in the short that blew the fuse. Of course, it's too far up to reach from the ground, so I found that if I removed the docking light just below it, that I would have just enough room to get my hand in to access the wires.

Long story, but it got me to thinking about the 2 for one fuse issue...

[truk4u]

Jim,

I would be wondering now what caused the fuse to blow? May want to check the Headhunter wiring to make sure there are no issues.

[jelmore]

Tom, that's the easy part. Water sprayed into the sensing unit on the holding tank side and shorted out the system. I was reconfiguring the water supply hookups and unhooked the wrong pipe. Learned a lot, though!